Cambodia to deport Pirate Bay co-founder

Reuters

PHNOM PENH - Cambodia will deport a Swedish co-founder of Pirate Bay, one of the world's biggest free file-sharing websites, who was convicted and sentenced to prison in Sweden for breaching copyright laws, a police official said on Tuesday.

Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 27, has been living in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, a nd was arrested last week after a request from Sweden, but he may not necessarily be sent back home directly.

"We will deport him based on our immigration law," police spokesman Kirth Chantharith said, adding the decision was reached after talks between Cambodian and Swedish officials.

Cambodia and Sweden do not have an extradition treaty and Kirth Chantharith could not say where Warg would be sent.

"We just know we will deport him. As to which country, that would be up to the Swedish side," he said, adding no date had been set yet for the deportation.

Pirate Bay, launched in 2003, provides links to music and movie files that are stored on other users' computers.

Swedish subsidiaries of prominent music and film companies had taken the company to court claiming damages for lost revenue.

Mainstream media firms have also taken steps to have it blocked in other countries, including the Netherlands and Finland, as they struggle to combat illegal downloads.

Pirate Bay says no copyrighted material is stored on its servers and no exchange of files actually takes place there so it cannot be held responsible for what material is being exchanged.

An appeals court in Sweden sentenced three others behind the Pirate Bay site to between four months and 10 months in prison plus fines in 2010.

Warg failed to attend that hearing due to illness and his sentencing was deferred. He had originally been sentenced to a year in prison in 2009.

Cambodian website Khmer440.com, which originally reported Warg's arrest, said he had been living in Phnom Penh for four years.

Cambodia has a practice of deporting foreigners once they have served sentences.